Author tracks Springsteen, post-‘Born in the U.S.A.'

By Dwight Garner, New York Times

Published 4:05 pm, Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Among the best things about “Bruce,” a new biography of Springsteen by Peter Ames Carlin, is his portrait of the singer at his post-“Born in the U.S.A.” career crossroads when even he began to feel, he told a journalist, “Bruced out.”

He dissolved the E Street Band — he wouldn't record an album with its members again for more than 15 years, until “The Rising” in 2002 — causing bruised feelings.

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“Bruce” gets the bedrock story told. We witness the rental of a first guitar after Springsteen saw Elvis on “The Ed Sullivan Show.” “The first day I can remember lookin' in the mirror and standin' what I was seein',” Springsteen said, “was the day I had a guitar in my hand.”

Springsteen played in Jersey Shore bands with names like The Castiles and Steel Mill before auditioning for Columbia Records in 1972. He was in his wharf-rat phase and made two word-drunk early LPs before breaking through with “Born to Run” in 1975.

This material is well-known. The Springsteen obsessive — I rate myself at about an 8.1 out of a possible 10 — will hunt instead for smaller, juicier nuggets. On this front “Bruce” delivers. We learn, for example, that one of Springsteen's early bands almost played Woodstock. We witness Janis Joplin drooling over him that same year.

Springsteen nearly named one of his early groups, the author writes, the Intergalactic Pubic Band. He and his musician friends liked to play a cutthroat version of Monopoly for which they would add handmade cards to the Chance and Community Chest piles. If you drew the Race Riot! card, all your houses and hotels burned down.

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Bruce

By Peter Ames Carlin

Touchstone, $28

Robert De Niro stole his “You talkin' to me?” riff in “Taxi Driver” from Springsteen's stage patter. The Boss and his longtime manager, Jon Landau, came close to firing drummer Max Weinberg during the sessions for “The River” (1980); Weinberg took drum lessons to stay in the band.

Springsteen originally intended to give what became his first Top 10 single, “Hungry Heart,” to the Ramones.

He could be cruel to his band members, and was said to fine staff members for small infractions. “I could replace any of those guys in 24 hours,” Springsteen reportedly once said, referring to the E Street Band. “Except for Clarence,” he said about Clarence Clemons, his larger-than-life saxophonist.

Springsteen is a great American artist who deserves a great American biography, a book to rival those Peter Guralnick has composed about Elvis Presley. “Bruce” has its nice moments, and it's far from a disaster, but it's not that volume. It has a distant quality.

But Carlin gets across why Springsteen has meant so much, for so long, to so many people. He quotes a thumbnail review of “Darkness on the Edge of Town” that ran in Rolling Stone. It can stand in for my sense of this man's career: “Springsteen aims for moon and stars; hits moon and stars.”